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[See a second news report from the Hindustan Times, below this article from The Hindu. — Frontlines ed.]

Kathmandu, June 18, 2012

Prashant Jha, The Hindu

Circumstances favourable for revolution, says Kiran

After a protracted internal party struggle, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) finally split on Monday evening with senior vice-chairman Mohan Vaidya ‘Kiran’ walking away with several other senior leaders to form another party, the Nepal Communist Party (Maoist). The decision was taken at taken at the end of a three-day national gathering of cadres associated with the ‘Kiran’ faction.

The new party has termed the two key decisions of the Prachanda-led Maoist party — accepting the “democratic republic” line in 2005 (which enabled collaboration with democratic parties); and signing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2006 — as major mistakes. In a document presented at the gathering, Mr Kiran said, “The objective circumstances are favourable for a revolution. We should now create the subjective circumstances for revolution.”

Senior leaders who have sided with Mr Kiran to set up a new party include many stalwarts of the Maoist movement — Ram Bahadur Thapa ‘Badal’, C P Gajurel, Dev Gurung and Netra Bikram Chand ‘Biplab’. The new party will have a 44-member central committee; its new leadership structure is yet to be decided. Continue reading →

[The line struggle within the UCPN(M) between the “people’s revolution” faction vs. the “bourgeois republic” faction has now led to separate organized forms within the overall-dysfunctional party. While debates have led to organizing separate, and opposing, programmatic paths, the issues remain largely unsettled. Chief among them seem to be: to re-ignite and carry forward the people’s revolutionary armed struggle, OR to squander the remaining (disarmed) PLA forces on ever-shrinking plans for integrating PLA fighters and officers into the Nepalese Army; the question of advancing land reform of the peasants against the feudal landlords, OR to permit the return of lands and privileges to the feudal system in the countryside; whether to advance the struggle for New Democracy with revolutionary communist leadership, OR to retreat further into the opportunist swamp of the bourgeois republic and neo-colonial/comprador relations. Revolutionary politics once shaped and crystallized the mission of the people’s war; then, with the abandonment of the PW in 2006, the questions became confined to inner-party struggle. Now the questions and debates and actions are returning to the streets and villages. The revolutionary Nepalese people are looking to leaders like Kiran, Gajurel, and Thapa to step forward, and lead. — Frontlines ed.]

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Mohan Baidya "Kiran"

Nepal’s Maoist leader fires a salvo at his own party government

by Prashant Jha, The Hindu, Kathmandu, March 26, 2012

People are being betrayed on the Constitution, says Kiran

Senior vice-chairperson of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) Mohan Vaidya ‘Kiran’ has said if the integration of the People’s Liberation Army is not “respectable” and a People’s Federal Republican Constitution is not drafted, the Nepali people will have a “right to revolt” again. In an exclusive interview to The Hindu, Mr. Kiran reiterated the demand for the resignation of the government, led by his party colleague Dr. Baburam Bhattarai.

Saying there was an ongoing battle in the party between “right-wing revisionism” and “revolutionary Marxism”, Mr. Kiran said: “We are not against peace and Constitution. But the debate is if our party has made anti-people compromises.”

Hari Bol Gajurel

‘Mistakes’

Mr. Kiran said while the goal of a “democratic republic” — set by the Maoist party in 2005, which led to an alliance with other parties against the monarchy — was tactically right, it could not solve people’s problems and the party should have aimed to establish a “People’s Federal Republic” or a “People’s Democracy’. Asked if this meant one-party rule by the Maoists, he said: “Parliamentary democracy is also class hegemony where five per cent rule over 95 per cent. In people’s dictatorship, it would be the other way round.”

Pointing to mistakes committed by the party, the Maoist ideologue said that during the war they had created an “army, base areas, people’s governments”.

The base areas were opened up and the parallel governments dissolved soon after the Maoists entered open politics in 2006. Mr. Kiran claimed this was wrong and not in favour of the people whose issues Maoists had raised.

Ram Bahadur Thapa 'Badal'

“On integration of our army, the party stand was it should be collective and armed integration of combatants with the chain of command of PLA intact. But what is happening now is disarmament. A national security policy should have been framed first, but we did not pay attention to that either,” he said.

To have a people’s Constitution, Mr Kiran said, there be provisions for “ethnic autonomy; right to self determination; special rights for Dalits, Muslims and women; right to food, education, health and work; revolutionary land reform; and a proportional representation based electoral system”. “But we fear that Nepali people are being betrayed on the Constitution as well.”

Mr. Kiran also reiterated the demand for the government’s resignation. Accusing it of “surrendering to India”, he said: “It signed the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement [BIPPA] with India without consulting anyone. We had opposed unequal treaties in the past. But the Energy Minister of this government, from our own party, went and approved the Pancheshwor agreement in Delhi recently. They are now talking of a DPR [detailed project report] for the Kosi high dam, despite popular opposition.”

Party unity

The political rift within the Maoists has translated into operational disunity, with the establishment faction of chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ and Prime Minister Dr. Bhattarai calling meetings of their own loyalists while Mr. Kiran’s dissident faction holds parallel meetings. Separate committees have been set up at all levels, separate offices are used as a base and independent programmes are held.

Admitting that it was an “unnatural” situation, Mr. Kiran called it a situation of a “party within a party, organisation within an organisation”. Asked if the party would split, he said: “That depends on the principles, political roadmap, tactics and strategy which the party will undertake. There is a complex two-line struggle at present. Can we take that forward and resolve it positively? Revolutionaries don’t split; they revolt. If the leadership turns opportunist; a federal, anti-imperial, pro people’s Constitution is not made; and if PLA is not respectfully integrated, Nepali people have the right to revolt.” Continue reading →